The Rising of the Shield Hero Volume 05 (7 page)

Even if they were lying, their lies would only affect their own reputations.

“Fine. Well I guess it’s my turn.”

“Yes. We’ve all done our best to fill you in on what we know, so you better come clean yourself.”

“If you think I’m lying, I’m not going to take the blame.”

This whole thing was getting more confusing by the minute.

“What do you want to know first?”

To tell the truth, these three approached everything as if it were a game. At the very least, I needed to find some way to make them take this seriously—or all our lives would be in danger. So I had better tell them the truth.

“Tell us why Raphtalia and Filo are as powerful as they are.”

“That’s easy enough. I have a Slave-User Shield and a Monster-User Shield, both of which have great equip bonuses that let me affect how they level up. There are effects like ‘status adjustment’ and other things. And Filo has one other bonus from my Filolial Shield.”

Should I tell them about the floating cowlick during the class-up ceremony? I decided to wait and see how the rest of the meeting played out.

“The shield class in the game I know didn’t have any skills that were that useful.”

“I find that very difficult to believe. Such skills would break the game . . . . Where did you find a cheating shield?”

Cheating? Ha . . . whatever—there was no pleasing these guys.

“I got the Slave-User Shield from the ink that is used in the slave curse ceremony, and I got the Monster-User Shield from a piece of the egg that Filo hatched from.”

“Well if he tells us where he got the shields, we might as well try for ourselves.”

“You can try, but there’s no guarantee that the same thing will happen for you.”

“Sure, but you could be lying to us.”

“Think whatever you want. What if it's a leveling system that’s only available on the legendary shield?”

“Okay, let’s just pretend you’re telling the truth. It still doesn’t explain why Filo is as strong as she is. Her power is remarkable. She’d been strong enough from the beginning, but now she’s something else completely. How did that happen?”

“Oh—that. That happened when we were busy running away from you and Bitch. A nobleman that was under the employ of the Church of the Three Heroes removed the seal on a powerful monster.”

“I heard about that—but I heard that you were the one that released the beast.”

The queen leaned forward and interjected.

“Actually, I had an official investigation conducted concerning this matter. It seems the corrupt nobleman in the town refused to admit his defeat at Mr. Iwatani’s hands, and then released the monster out of desperation.”

I hadn’t had a chance to go back and check on the area after we’d left. There was a really nice nobleman in the neighboring town. I privately called him Nice Guy. He’d made the local demi-human community into a priority of sorts. I wonder what ended up happening to him?

“Excuse me, your majesty. What happened to the nobility in the neighboring town?”

“After all that transpired, we have decided to have him brought back to his town. It’s only been a short time, but he was very exhausted from the escape, and we have been seeing to his medical treatment in the meantime.”

“Oh . . . .”

We’d also met someone from Raphtalia’s village, and they’d escaped with Nice Guy. We could only hope that they’d all made it home safely.

“What sort of monster did the nobleman release?”

“We lured the beast away from any populated centers and attempted to fight it out in the wilderness. But just as the battle was starting, the queen of the filolials, Fitoria, appeared and defeated the monster. Then she used some sort of magic to transport us all to a safe place.”

“Transport?”

“That’s the only word I can think of. It was like I suddenly lost my footing. I don’t really understand it.”

“Don’t you have any transport skills? When I saw you running from Motoyasu before, I realized you didn’t know any, but I figured you must have procured one or two by now.”

Ren nodded along with Itsuki, and Motoyasu also nodded in agreement.

“There are skills like that?”

“Of course. Mine is a skill called Transport Bow. You can register places that you have already visited, and then instantly transport yourself and your party there at any time.”

“Mine is called Transport Sword. It works the same way.”

“Mine is Portal Spear. You really don’t know about this stuff?”

“No! This is the first I’ve heard of it!”

What were they talking about? I sure wish I’d known that being a hero had such convenient benefits!

“To unlock it you have to be at level 50 though—a little high.”

That would explain why I didn’t have it. I was still at level 43.

Wait a second, did that mean that these clowns were all over level 50?

“What materials do you need?”

“The sand from the dragon hourglass.”

“That’s right . . . .”

The three of them nodded. But . . . .

“How did you get them to let you have any sand?!”

“We just asked for it and they gave it to us.”

Dammit! I’d only run into those curmudgeon sisters when I was in the church—and they wouldn’t let me have anything at all.

“Well? So what happened after the transport?”

“She spent some time teaching Filo how to battle effectively, and then she did . . . something . . . and Filo’s stats shot way up. Then she sat me down and lectured me, saying that the heroes needed to work together. She said that if she didn’t, she’d kill us all.”

Ha! The three of them looked like they didn’t believe a word that I was saying.

“If you think I’m lying, maybe you’d like to have a battle with Filo for yourselves? We just went through the class-up ceremony too, so she’s even stronger now.”

Didn’t they realize that Filo’s stats were nearly double my own?

Motoyasu had a hard enough time holding his own against me in a battle—he wouldn’t stand a chance against Filo.

“No. That won’t be necessary.”

“Okay, I’ll ask the next question. During the battle with the high priest, Naofumi commanded a lot of power. It was unnatural. It came from that ominous-looking shield of his. I never saw anything like that in the game I played.”

Itsuki shot me a doubtful look and kept on talking.

“Where did you find a power like that? No, that’s not quite right, let me rephrase: Where did you meet God?”

“What?”

“Did you meet God somewhere and receive a cheating shield from him? There’s a web novel I read where the main character gets a special power like that and it enables him to pull ahead of the other characters. Tell me the truth.”

Ha! I knew the story he was talking about, but nothing like that had happened here.

I’d been through a lot since showing up in this world, but few questions have irritated me the way that this one did.

“It’s not cheating!”

“Oh, yes it is. A shielder shouldn’t really be able to deal any damage at all!”

Ren and Motoyasu nodded.

“Where did you get it? If we were able to get our hands on a power like that then we would be unstoppable. You have to tell us.”

These morons just spat nonsense on top of nonsense. It was starting to really piss me off.

“Maybe I just worked really hard for it?”

“Yeah right.”

They were a bunch of brutes. They had already made up their minds about what a shielder could do.

But I had a feeling they were mistaken. I think that shielders were stronger than they thought.

I saw it this way: I worked on getting more and better equip bonuses, and as a result I eventually got my hands on the curse series—that’s how I ended up being stronger than any of them.

But they seemed to think that I had somehow figured out how to cheat so that I could be as powerful as they were.

“That shield is called the Shield of Rage. It’s part of the curse series that is contained in the legendary shield. I don’t know exactly what caused it to come out, but if I had to guess . . . I would say that it responded to my own anger. It first showed up when I was dueling with Motoyasu. I was very angry because I was tricked and cheated and everything was unfair.”

I remembered when it happened. I was so angry and the anger had nowhere to go. I thought it was going to swallow me completely.

If Raphtalia hadn’t been there to calm me down, who knows what would have happened?

“It’s all right there in the help menu. It says you’ll have to pay a price for using it. Could you three control it? By the way, I used it to defeat the high priest, but it attacked me too, and as a result my stats are still recovering.”

Ren squinted and waved his finger through the air. He must have been looking through the help menus.

Then, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, he said, “Nope. There’s nothing like that in here.”

Give me a break! It was right there in my menu. I’d been able to read about it from the moment the Shield of Rage was unlocked.

“It might not show up until you unlock the weapon.”

“Do internet games tend to have lots of really powerful cursed weapons available?”

“Of course not. That growth adjusting shield seems pretty suspect too.”

“If you’re going to lie to us, you should think of better lies—just like Ren and Motoyasu here.”

Ren completely lost his cool when he heard what Itsuki said. He leapt to his feet and jabbed his finger at Itsuki.

“Who the hell are you to talk?! You’re the worst lying hypocrite here!”

“Is that so? What about you, always pretending to be so cool! You don’t look so cool now, do you?!”

“Yeah, exactly.”

Ren and Itsuki both turned and shouted together. “You’re just a womanizing fool! Looking for another hussy yet?!”

“What was that?!”

“All of you! How long are you going to run around pretending this is a game? You need to act like actual heroes or we are all going to die!”

Honestly, I don’t even want to remember what happened next. The room collapsed into vulgar name-calling.

The queen shouted in protest, saying whatever she could to try and get the room under control, but it was already too late. There was no stopping it.

The shouting and fighting continued until the door flew open, rattling on its hinges as a crowd of soldiers filed in.

“What happened?”

The sudden appearance of the soldiers somehow brought me back to reality, and my head cleared for a second.

“The heroes’ party members have started to argue downstairs!”

“What?!”

Those idiots . . . what had they gotten themselves into now?

We all hurried out of the room and down the stairs.

“You better take that back!”

“I don’t think so. That ugly thing—he’s a scar on the world! My eyes don’t lie.”

“Are you sure you aren’t talking about yourself?!”

“Ha! Like the servant of an arrogant fool like him would have any idea!”

By the time we arrived in the hall, Raphtalia was in a shouting match with Bitch and Armor, the flashy armor guy.

Ren’s party, along with Filo and that Rishia girl, stood back and watched helplessly.

Raphtalia was furious. I’d never seen her so upset. What on earth had happened?

Bitch sure was looking energetic though. She’d just been poisoned and come back from the hospital, and she was already getting into fights?

Motoyasu’s party, including Bitch, consisted of three people.

One of them was standing next to Bitch and participating in the argument. The other one was standing off at a distance, watching the battle unfold.

“Ha! How could anyone hope to survive with party members like dirty demi-humans and nasty monsters?”

“Oh just die and get it over with already! This is punishment for causing a ruckus.”

The queen snapped her fingers and the slave curse activated.

“Kyaaaaaaaaa!”

A glowing seal appeared on Bitch’s chest and she fell to the floor, writhing in pain.

Itsuki’s teammate, the armor guy, was shocked at the queen’s actions. He stood back and his face went pale as he watched.

“I swear . . . . Why do you have to do these things?”

The queen looked exhausted as she looked down on the writhing Bitch.

She wasn’t going to kill her . . . was she?

“Raphtalia, what happened?”

“We were talking to the others about how to best cooperate from now on, when Bitch and the others came over and started saying that there was no need to team up with us, that only bad things could come of it. Then she started insulting my village and making fun of Filo . . . . Then she started insulting Melty, saying that she knew how to read her parents’ faces so she could manipulate them. She was boasting of all the horrible things that she’s done!”

I sighed and glared at Itsuki and Motoyasu.

“You mustn’t! These two are friends of a hero, and they fight to save this world!”

Itsuki, sensing the direction things were going, turned to Armor and scolded him.

“But Master Itsuki . . . aren’t these people wandering around and causing problems everywhere they go?”

That was rich. This coming from the guy who was causing a problem right here, right now.

“That has been shown to have been a misunderstanding. Please make your peace with them.”

“Very well.”

“Myn . . . I mean, Whore! Why are you treating her like this?”

Motoyasu cradled Bitch in his arms and glared at the queen.

“This is the punishment she receives for inciting disorder. It’s as simple as that. From all that I’ve heard, the problem seems to lie with her and her alone.”

The queen snapped open her fan and covered her mouth as she spoke. Motoyasu’s displeasure was evident—he stared at her, hate burning in his eyes.

“Mr. Kitamura? Take the time to properly think this over. This girl just got back from her convalescence in the hospital, and this is the first thing she did.”

“Urm . . . .”

“Did you hear what just happened here? Is it not obvious where the blame lies?”

Motoyasu, clearly sensing that he was over his head, said nothing else. He simply cradled Bitch in his arms and left the hall.